


On the Rocks

by LaVik



Category: Sons of Anarchy
Genre: Drama, F/M, Romance, Suspense
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-09-28
Updated: 2014-10-05
Packaged: 2018-02-19 03:58:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 18,661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2373659
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaVik/pseuds/LaVik
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On the run in Stockton, Juice finds himself shacked up with a Good Samaritan who has a few secrets of her own. As the inevitable conflict between SAMCRO and the Lin Triad inches towards a boiling point, however, Juice's Good Samaritan just might hold the key to returning to grace with his brothers. Will Juice be willing to give up the girl who changes his life to win back the club's favor, even if it means submitting her to Jax's obsession with revenge? [AU as of Season 7]</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Deals with Devil

**Author's Note:**

> As mentioned in the summary, this story is mostly AU as of season 7 of the show, picking up after Juice leaves Wendy's place and is forced on the run. 
> 
> I've watched Sons of Anarchy for a good while, but not religiously, so I'm doing my best with the knowledge I have. I also work full-time, so most of my updates are raw and un-beta'd. I do my best to make time for my fanfiction on top of work and my original fiction.

" _The intelligence officer?"_

The young Chinese woman crossed her legs, her boot-clad feet landing with a thud on the table as she looked at her older brother questioningly. She'd assumed he'd called for one of their little brother-sister, 'we really need to catch up' lunches that she was sure he only planned to assuage his conscience at the fact that they had nothing truly in common. Instead, he'd invited her to his home - his beautiful, perfectly maintained bungalow in Burlingame, California, nestled into the ritzy peninsula area of the San Francisco Bay Area - and immediately launched into an outlandish tirade that revolved around business, bikers, and their uncle: Henry Lin.

"You want me to get information out of their _intelligence officer_?"

"Your feet, _meimei,_ " the slightly older man chided, and she rolled her eyes at the fact that he insisted upon using the Chinese term of endearment for a baby sister. She had a name, after all. Denise. Her older brother, Charles, however, practically seemed to have forgotten this fact. Grousing, she removed her feet with a slight stomp and placed them on the ground, resting her elbows on her knees without any regard for the grimace that crossed her brother's face at her lack of feminine graces. "I don't know exactly what's happening, but you and I both know that Father's money is running out. He left us with hardly _anything_ , and pretty soon, you won't get to go to your nice university, live in your nice little condo -"

"Then _what_?" she hissed.

"Uncle Henry's been keeping his finger on the pulse as far as those SAMCRO thugs - he knows they're up to something, but I'm not sure what," Charles said, crossing his thin arms over his chest. "I thought they were working together -"

"Not everyone who works together is one the same side," Charles snapped. "But there's been talk about trouble among them, and that _intelligence officer_ is the weak link. He's ditched their little town, and his bike's been impounded in Stockton."

Denise sneered slightly as she realized that there had been no intention of _asking_ her to be involved in whatever he was planning. Charles Kwan had already planned his sister's involvement in his schemes to the very last detail. She attended a private university - University of the Pacific - in the city, and had a small, barely lived-in condo unit in the area. Granted, at twenty-four, she felt a little old to still be in college, but she had admittedly given herself permission to explore other interests. She'd worked as a nursing assistant for a good few years to make just enough to fund her hobbies - martial arts and guns, mostly - until her father and grandfather had both died in a car crash. She had adjusted, sure, but Charles seemed to have grown twisted and bitter in the three years since, and now here they were.

" _Gege_ ," she said, using the Chinese term of endearment for her older brother, which she only used because she knew it appeased him. "You know I don't want -"

"This is the only way to get into Uncle Henry's good graces," he insisted, reaching over to the bottle of scotch on the table and pouring two glasses, handing one to his sister. "This is for us, _meimei_. Dad left us with hardly anything, and we can't live on ambition. If we pull this off, I will _never_ drag you into these things ever again."

Denise rolled her eyes in disbelief - she'd heard that one plenty of times before. She flinched slightly, however, when Charles reached out and grabbed both of her hands. He had never been one to be physically affectionate. She looked up at him, and he smiled slightly when he saw that he'd broken her stubbornness - at least, perhaps chipped it a little. "This is for _us_ ," he repeated, squeezing her hands again.

For a while, Denise seemed to mull over the idea, studying the expression on her brother's face as he awaited a response from her. She looked down at herself - her baggy jeans, boots, t-shirt, and knuckles wrapped because she had rushed from a quick session with a punching bag - then back at her brother with a disbelieving expression. " _Ge_ , look at me," she insisted, wondering how, with such a lack of feminine wiles, she could ever do what he was asking. She had _never_ been the ideal daughter or granddaughter, and she was hardly in a position to start. Charles, however, seemed to be of a different opinion.

"You can always change _you_ ," he said simply, raising his eyebrows in an expression that seemed to suggest Denise had overlooked something so very obvious. "We'll practically deliver him right to you. Right into your lap. You just play innocent. You look the innocent flower -"

"But be the serpent under it," she finished, more than familiar with the quote from Hamlet that Charles always used on her when he got her involved in his mad ideas. "Understood."

Charles grinned, raising his glass and nodding for Denise to follow suit, clinking his glass against hers. The pair of siblings took a drink, and Charles immediately then stood to pluck a stack of papers off of the shelf, holding them out to his sister.

Denise thumbed through and frowned slightly - these were the records of one _Juan Carlos Ortiz_ , or Juice as he was called, and all of his dealings with the law and local hospitals in recent years.

"Learn them and burn them, _meimei_ ," Charles instructed. Denise sighed heavily. There was no refusing this now. She forced a tight-lipped smile and tucked the thick stack of papers under her arm, leaving her brother's house.

Charles, however, felt a slight pang of guilt - because this wasn't for the two of them. If Denise _knew_ the truth, that she didn't need to do any of this for her security or her future, that she simply needed to wait until the time was right, she would have never helped him. He needed to keep her dependent upon him and loyal to him, because this was the only way _he_ would ever be able to survive. He sneered slightly at his own thoughts and took one last deep swig from his Scotch.

If he could just win favor from Uncle Henry, even if he had to use his sister to do it, his future would be set.


	2. Hit, Run, Lost, and Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Denise Kwan sets the plan in motion. Juice is baffled by his new-found Good Samaritan.

Juice knew he would have been better off if he had just left Stockton too - left his bike in the impound lot and just moved the hell on. He’d left everything else after all, hadn’t he? But he couldn’t bring himself to do it. Every man had his limits, he decided, and this was it. He’d been relegated to being a bum on the streets of Stockton with one duffel bag of belongings, and cash in his wallet that he could hardly spend because a bum with hundred dollar bills practically called the police on himself around here.

He’d had it alright, shacked up at Wendy’s place. He might even have been safe there for a while. It was too hot there now. There wasn’t much of anything left to do, even if he’d wanted to stay in Charming.

 Food had been a problem. Water had been a problem. Juice had already come to feel pretty lightheaded when he made his way to a bus stop and decided to wait. He’d take any bus that showed up, as long as it accepted that he was about sixty cents short of his fare and got him to a different place besides the overpass he’d slept under last night. He stepped out into the bike lane, however, with his forearm held up against his forehead to block the glare from the sun, and in that moment, and large SUV went practically flying by, knocking him off of his feet. He let out a noise when he felt his head hit the pavement - enough to stun him, but not to knock him out.

 “Fuck!”

 “Oh my God…”

 Juice forced his eyes open in time to hear footsteps, and a female voice coming closer. She was young - tiny, Asian, practically a toothpick - and dressed in a pair of skinny jeans and a flowery crop top under a beige pleather jacket. Pleather. Juice was in no position to be picky about her choice of clothing, however, seeing as she was the only one among the handful of people around who had crouched down to help him. She grabbed his hand, pulling him up gently as he touched the back of his own head and realized he was bleeding.

 “Oh my God,” she repeated. “I’m gonna call an ambu--”

 “No!” Juice interrupted, causing the girl to flinch. He groaned slightly, his forehead wrinkled in pain. “No, I don’t want an ambulance, I’m fine.”

 “Well - can I take you somewhere?”

 “No.”

 “I live close by, at least wash that off -- sit and put an ice pack on it,” the girl insisted. Juice felt strangely about someone showing him kindness, and he blinked at her with a slight sneer on his face, causing her to lean away slightly. She had no reason to help him, no benefit to be had, and because of that, he had no reason to trust her. She seemed genuine, however, and his head did indeed hurt like a bitch. Unsure of what exactly possessed him to do so, he followed the girl to her car and got in, leaning forward and holding his hand onto the sparsely bleeding cut on his head. The blood was probably only from a scratch, but he could feel the bump practically forming under his hand.

 He realized that the girl lived in Brookside, one of the few parts of Stockton that a person could at say was somewhat nice without feeling like they needed to go to confession for telling such a plain-faced lie. She led him into one of the small, townhouse like structures and hurriedly yanked a first aid kit out of her kitchen. Juice snatched it from her hands and, however messily, cleaned himself up. The girl nodded for him to take a seat on the couch before handing him a blanket.

 Juice took the object from her hands, but as it rolled open, he realized that the purple fuzzy material had sleeves. “This is a Snuggie,” he pointed out in mild confusion. The girl emerged from the kitchen with an ice pack and an expression that screamed, ‘so what?’. Juice cleared his throat and pulled it over him. In this new autumn weather, it was honestly the warmest he’d been. “I mean, thank you. I’m J--”

 He paused. Was he really going to still call himself Juice? He almost felt like he had no right to use the nickname anymore, and in any case, it was better to bury his tracks. He cleared his throat, shaking his head gently. “Juan. My name’s Juan.”

 “Denise,” the girl replied - Juice was fairly sure he caught a smile on her face, but couldn’t be sure as she turned on her heel and left the room yet again, this time returning with an unopened container of Advil. “I -- I’m only here during the week for school, so I have a lot of unused stuff,” she shrugged, noting his gaze on the still-sealed bottle of medicine. “But you’re gonna need that pretty soon.”

“Where are you from, then?” Juice asked, partially out of caution about the girl whose house he had just waltzed into. She’d brought up that she wasn’t always here - so where did she go off to? The suspicion felt misplaced, but a part of him refused to believe there was such a thing as too careful.

“Burlingame,” she said, starting to mill about the room and pick up a few books scattered on the dining table, the coffee table, and kitchen counter. “You look like -- let me guess. San Jose?”

 “Queens,” he corrected. He couldn’t say he was from Charming, after all. Denise paused and looked at him with a surprised expression, nodding as though she was actually impressed by the answer.

 “Well, you’re pretty far from home,” she pointed out. Juice gave a look somewhat between a sneer and a smile. “Look,” she sighed, looking slightly disappointed as she stood with her books in her arms, approaching so that she was on the other side of the coffee table from Juice. “I’m sure you’ve got places to be and all, but you hit your head pretty hard back there.”

 “No. I mean, yeah,” Juice stammered, shaking his head and realizing that he did feel somewhat disoriented at this point. “I mean, no, I have no place to be. Yes, I hit my head pretty hard.”

 “Well, if you have nowhere else to go, then you could hand around here while I’m in class,” she suggested. He looked at her now with a look of confusion and inexplicable ‘what the hell?’.

 “You are either really dumb, or have no valuables - I could rob you blind,” he groaned through his throbbing headache, still somehow managing to inject the statement with a matter-of-fact tone. Denise, however, just chuckled in response.

 “Well, thanks for the heads up. You’re probably the most considerate burglar in Stockton,” she smirked. “The most valuable thing in here is that TV I got on Black Friday, if you’d like to try and steal it on foot. Maybe you can figure out to hook up all of that stuff,” she chuckled, gesturing vaguely to the old video game consoles littering the ground in front of the very large television screen - they were old enough to be thrift store old, even practically vintage. Denise laughed again, shaking her head and moving towards the door. “Make yourself at home, but -- don’t go anywhere because I’m not leaving you a key. We’re not that close,” she joked.

 Juice felt like he’d just been thrown into an alternate universe - since when could a person be so nice, in a place like Stockton?

 Denise, however, dropped the bright smile the instant she stepped foot out of the door and started heading back to her car, pulling out her cellphone and sending him a simple, coded text message. Picked up the groceries.

The nice girl on the street act, of course, had been a lie. Charles had been driving the SUV that had knocked Juice over - Denise hadn’t expected Juice to fall as hard as he did, but there seemed to be no harm done anyway, and the act probably worked better when it hurt worse anyway. One thing that was not a lie, however, was that she had to go to class. Physics - which she didn’t know why she was taking. Perhaps, she sometimes mused in her classes, she was lost in more ways than one, but being a directionless college student was certainly a way to kill time. She actually wondered why she hadn’t done it sooner.

 When she returned home, however, she opened the door to see that her houseguest was no longer on the couch. But the door had been locked - he hadn’t left. “Juan?” she called out, using the name he’d introduced himself with. His real name. Still no answer. “Juan?” she repeated, moving elsewhere in the house. It was then that she saw the bathroom door open, and Juice sitting on the ground against the wall opposite the toilet, a small amount of vomit on the front of his shirt. Denise groaned slightly, but hurried over and crouched in front of him again. He groaned quietly, and she gave a sigh of relief that he wasn’t dead.

 Admittedly grossed out a bit by the smell despite having worked a short while as a nurse aide, Denise pulled off his shirt and tossed it into the nearby bathtub before tilting his head up, eliciting another disoriented groan. Denise realized he had probably been dehydrated after being out on the streets, and then had subsequently puked his brains out because of his concussion. She ran to the kitchen and pulled a bottle of Gatorade from the fridge, then returned to bathroom and practically pinched Juice’s face to position his mouth open.

“What are you doing?” he slurred. Denise rolled her eyes.

 “C’mon. It’s Gatorade. Down the hatch,” she said, attempting to continue the bright-eyed girl facade from earlier. Thankfully, he did manage to swallow a mouthful of the Gatorade, then reach out and take the bottle for himself. Good thing, Denise noted, because she certainly hadn’t signed on to be a babysitter or a caregiver.

 She still had to help him back on his feet to get back to her couch, and she sat on the arm of the couch next to him while he drank the Gatorade and seemed to get his wits about him again, at least slightly.

 “So,” Denise said slowly after a good while of silence as Juice simply stared forward into space. “Are you… homeless or something?” she asked, as though she didn’t know anything about him. He turned to her with a slight glare, with annoyance, actually.

 “Yeah. Right now, I am,” he snapped. “Why? You never seen a homeless vet before?”

 There was a tense silence, and Denise looked away as well - partially to hide the fact that she honestly couldn’t feign hurt feelings as well as she’d have liked, partially because she couldn’t parse out if the response contained truth or not, as it certainly didn't match up with the background she'd read on him. “Well,” she said, clearing her throat. “You could crash here. I didn’t buy a couch that folds out into a sofa bed just to have nobody sleeping on it.”

 “I don’t have money to pay you --”

 “But you have money to pay a motel or something? Or are you going back to that bus stop I found you at?” Denise asked, raising an eyebrow quizzically. “Look, I made a New Year’s Resolution to do a good deed for somebody this year - like, something really good. It’s already fall, and I haven’t done it. I’ve never failed on a New Year’s Resolution in my life,” she explained emphatically - Juice looked simultaneously enthralled and puzzled by her rant. “So, really, you’re kind of helping me out,” Denise concluded brightly.

 At first, Juice had nothing to say in response to the girl - what kind of world did she come from that she somehow got to the age that she was and still was so bright-eyed and fucking-bushy-tailed about everything? But he needed a place to stay, and she was the only one who was presenting that to him right now. Sure, he was a danger to her. Sure, people wanted him dead. But - he’d lost enough thinking about other people at this point, hadn’t he? He nodded, more to himself than anything else, before looking up at Denise looking almost defeated. “Alright,” he shrugged. “I’ll crash here.”


	3. Every Key Goes to a Door

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juice is naked and pointing a gun in Denise's face - her reaction is not what he expected.

Juice realized at some point during the night that he _stank_ \- whether it was from having been stuck under an overpass for days, or from having thrown up all over himself, he certainly smelled homeless at this point. Denise had said to make himself at home, hadn't she?

So, he'd helped himself to a shower, though he'd first come across the shirt she'd peeled off of him when she'd found him in the bathroom. He decided to do the kind thing and throw it in the trash, since he had desire to clean it, and he wasn't about to make her a _maid_ too. Once he was in the shower and the small needles of hot water - with excellent water pressure, he couldn't help but notice - cascaded over his skin, which itself was more sun and windburnt from living the way he'd been forced to, he groaned slightly and leaned his forehead against the cold tile.

He was _fucked_ , he realized. How long could he just stay in some girl's house like this? Eventually, she'd put two and two together that she was harboring someone who was on the streets for a reason, and he'd be back where he started. He ran his fingers through his hair, which now grown to nearly a finger-length all over his head. He'd covered up his head tattoos and hidden his kutte in his duffel to try and blend in - now, his bike was in an impound lot, and he was without a way of even getting it club had once been everything to him. Now, he was shedding every vestige, slowly losing that part of his identity because he needed to in order to _live_.

After what was likely to have been about forty-five minutes in the shower, he finally shut off the water and grabbed one of the towels from the bar, wrapping it around his waist before venturing out to the living room, where the lights were still off. Before he get back to the sofa bed, however, he felt something bump into him from behind and fall to the ground with a small thud.

" _Shit!_ " Denise's voice yelped audibly. Juice realized first that he was completely in the buff, and second that he hadn't even heard her coming. "Juan?" she continued, clearly barely awake as she got to her feet and hit the lightswitch. "I - I forgot you were here."

"You forgot," Juice repeated incredulously, his eyes wide - he looked away out of respect, however, when he realized that his gracious host was clad only in an off-shoulder cotton shirt and boyshort underwear. He heard her gasp a little, and he moved his glance upwards with a slight groan. He was going to get kicked out now, he could tell. "You _forgot_ that you invited a stranger to come live in your living room? How do you live in this city without getting kidnapped? Do you hop into random vans when they offer you candy too?" he said in exasperation, still looking away - Denise, in turn, was looking at the floor with one hand positioned over her brow like a visor to obstruct the view of… _anything_. She kept her other arm crossed over her chest and began stammering nervously.

"I'm doing a good deed. _I'm doing a good deed_ ," she seemed to chant to herself a few times, still refusing to look up, or to acknowledge anything Juice had just said, until finally she let out a frustrated groan and clenched her eyes shut, crossing both arms over herself now. "Look, could you just put some pants on?!"

The request caught Juice by surprise - did it really bother her _that_ much? He cleared his throat and scrambled over to his duffel bag, pulling open the zipper and yanking out the pair of jeans sitting on the top of his few belongings. As he pulled, however, something else tumbled out of the bag as well and clattered to the floor. Recognizing the sound, Denise's eyes flew open and she found herself staring at a recognizable Beretta handgun - both she and Juice froze momentarily in surprise, until he moved first, lurching forward and picking up the gun to point at her. Denise jumped backwards slightly and noticed that at this point, his hand was shaking. Both hands - he very well could have let go of the towel he was holding around his waist.

For Juice, however, this seemed _dire_ \- she knew he was staying in her living room, packing heat. She didn't know who he was. Women scared easy, and he knew she could very well call the cops on him now, whether he did anything to her or not. The jig was up. It _had_ to be.

"I'm not gonna say anything. I'm not gonna ask anything," she said quickly, holding up her hands in front of her chest. "Juan - _Juan,_ put the gun down. If you were gonna hurt me, you had all night to do it," she reasoned. Once he was able to process her words, his aim lowered slightly, his arm no longer locked, but he didn't put the gun down completely. Denise took a deep breath. "You had your chance to take what you wanted. You had your chance to hurt me. You _didn't_ ," she said, taking a few slow steps forward.

Juice couldn't put his finger on what kind of person this girl was - she was doe-eyed and trusting, she was a sitting duck for anyone who wanted to do anything to her for it. But at the same time, she was ballsy. She was looking down the barrel of a Beretta and walking _closer,_ as if she didn't know that she was moving closer to something that could blow her brains out. Finally, he lowered his gun, placing it down on top of his bag but keeping an eye on her to make sure she didn't do anything dumb. He didn't _want_ to have to hurt her.

"You - you should eat," Denise suggested sheepishly as she put her hands down to her sides. "You puked up _everything_ last night. An empty stomach can really screw up your mood -"

"I just pulled a gun on you, and you're just chalking it up to me being _hungry_?"

"I think the word they use for it nowadays is _hangry_."

There was a brief pause, and Juice felt a twitch in his face that he initially felt compelled to resist - but instead, he smiled, and he let out a grudging laugh at her reply. She seemed to slump slightly in relief, and she mumbled something about going into the kitchen.

Once there was an entire wall between herself and Juice, Denise finally exhaled deeply. The sweet and innocent act was more tiring than she'd thought. Running into him had admittedly been an accident, but the subsequent slapstick - the shock at seeing a naked man in her house, the cluelessness while seeing a gun fall out of his bag - had been her lying through her teeth.

However, it was strangely easier this time to put the act back on when she finished throwing together breakfast - coffee and grilled cheese, nothing fancy, and putting it down on the coffee table in front of Juice, who apparently had been more hungry than he'd suggested earlier. He'd put on a clean-ish pair of jeans and an undershirt, which quickly became littered with crumbs as he started practically shoveling the food into his mouth, not noticing Denise wander off back to her room until she returned dressed in jeans and a flowy white shirt, hopping back into the living as she struggled to tug a pair of boots on over her jeans.

"I'm going to the store for some stuff," she explained, adjusting her pant leg into the shoe before looking up at Juice, who had polished off the entire plate of grilled cheese sandwiches. "Do you - uh, need anything?" she asked. There was a pause, a trepidation as though he didn't trust her leaving. Denise paused and shrugged calmly. "I mean, if it's personal stuff, you could just come, I guess."

She moved over to the entertainment center that the TV was perched on and swiped up her car keys, giving them a slight wave. "I'll drive."

It seemed risky - he had just had a gun in her face, and all of a sudden, she wanted him to get in a car with her. For all he knew, she could be driving him to the nearest police station for that stunt. But she didn't _seem_ to be that kind of person, and Juice was reasonably sure that he could outrun her if push came to shove. He was out of clothes, and pretty much everything else. He was a little stir crazy from being stuck in this girl's living room. All of this combined seemed to be reason enough to follow her out the door.

He learned quickly that this sweet, naive young woman was in fact, not a perfect human being the instant she got behind the wheel - but, since he'd learned a bit of his way around Stockton within the past few days, he knew at least she wasn't heading anywhere near the police station. Instead, she made jerky, whiplash-inducing record time to the nearest Target.

"I just ate," Juice protested feebly as they both stepped out of the car and walked across the parking lot - he checked over his shoulder constantly and nearly ran into Denise as she stopped to pull a cart from the rack outside.

He felt strange, grabbing what he needed and putting it into this girl's shopping cart, but he figured on some level that no one else would likely see anything strange. They'd just assume they were a couple, and there was nothing embarrassing about anyone making that assumption. She was a pretty girl, so looking like _her_ boyfriend was not certainly the worst situation he'd been forced into for survival's sake.

When it came to waiting in line, however, and seeing her digging into her purse for her wallet, he felt a pang of discomfort. He had limits. With a slight groan, he reached into his pants - not his pocket, but _into_ his pants, eliciting a shocked glance from Denise, who jumped backward from him.

'What the -"

"Relax, I just keep my wallet down there," he said, holding it up and giving it a slight wave before pulling out a hundred dollar bill and holding it out to her. She frowned slightly, her nose wrinkling in distaste before he shoved the money into her hand. He couldn't wave that stuff around out here, he knew - it wasn't Charming. People would actually _wonder_ where he had money from. "It didn't rub against my junk, alright?" he said with his forehead wrinkling. "Letting you pay for razors and boxers is just… strangely emasculating. Groceries are on me, okay?"

Denise turned away to hide the fact that she was snickering, and paid for the cart's contents without a hitch. When they got back to the car, Juice felt himself bristle again at the fact that they didn't go straight home - instead, she parked in front of a nearby hardware store, and he looked at her with a pointed frown.

"You don't need to come down if you don't want to. I just need to pick up something," Denise said, stepping out of the driver's side. Had she arranged a meetup? Had she set him up? Noticing the way his eyes flitted around the car, Denise reached out and gave her car keys a slight toss so that they landed with a quiet jingle into his lap. "If anything seems fishy, you can drive off. I'll walk home. Just please don't stuff the keys down your pants because I have to touch them every day," she smirked before closing the car door and walking off.

She was too difficult to understand - she acted like Juice had somehow, in the span of a day, become her friend. Her roommate. He picked up the keys and looked at them, as though trying to figure out if they were fakes or something, but found nothing to indicate that she was pulling a fast one on him. Maybe, Juice realized, it was only this way because he was desperate to trust someone. Maybe he was being just as blind as he thought that she was - the thought milled through his head until the driver's side door opened again, and Denise poked her head back in, holding out a small envelope to him. He frowned again, taking it from her hand and opening to find a freshly cut key. His brow furrowed as he looked at Denise incredulously while she climbed back into the passenger's seat.

"I'm going home for the weekend after class tonight," she explained.

"But - what's this?"

"It's a key. You know, it opens doors and stuff?" she smirked, cocking her head to one side. "I told you - it's part of my good deed. I told you could stay, and I wouldn't be doing you any favors if I kept you cooped up in there. I don't want you running off and leaving my door unlocked, so we both win."

Juice couldn't wrap his head around why she was so obsessed with going through with this _good deed_ of hers - she seemed like a character out of some romantic comedy. That, he realized, or the victim of a Law and Order episode who ended up being murdered. But whatever the case, however strange she was, he _needed_ a break like this. He needed someone to believe it was worthwhile to cut him a little slack. He held the key up to the light and chuckled slightly, shaking his head.

"You're some kind of angel, aren't you, Dee?" he said with a lopsided grin. He realized it was a little presumptive to start calling her by a nickname so quickly, so he reneged, clearing his throat. "Denise. Sorry."

"You're good," she said with a slight laugh as she backed out of the parking space and started driving. She was glad that the tinted windows kept a little of daylight out of the car, so it wouldn't be so obvious that for the first time in one of their exchanges, redness had crept into her cheeks. that had been one thing she'd not been able to fake, even when he was standing naked in her living room with a gun pointed at her.

Catching her offguard one time was fine, she assured herself. She wouldn't let him get one over on her again.


	4. A Place in Line

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Denise is reminded of her place in her family. Juice's curiosity about his Good Samaritan gets the better of him.

Charles always felt a certain sense of unease whenever he was in _any_ of his uncle Henry's residences. Henry Lin enjoyed the ability to be constantly mobile, to have hideouts of sorts across the Bay Area as though he _owned_ the entire thing. His meeting place of choice today was his luxury condominium in the Twin Peaks district of San Francisco.

"Uncle," Charles said glancing at the door and waiting for it to open. Denise hadn't said anything about being late, so the fact that she still hadn't appeared immediately worried him. " _Mei_ is more than capable of this job."

"For your sake, she had better be," Henry said from his perch in an armchair across the table from his nephew. His tone, however, was not filled with fondness or warmth. It would never been something either Charles or Denise expected from him anyway. Henry and their father had only been _half_ brothers, after all. He took a puff from the fat cigar in his mouth and raised his eyebrows at his nephew. "The only service you've been capable of performing for me without failing is keeping that girl safe - I didn't ask for you to bring her into this," he sneered. "It's not a good idea to dangle her as bait in front of people we don't want too close to our business. She's a _girl_ -"

"I'll be fine."

Denise appeared in the doorway, and Charles couldn't help but give a slight chuckle at the sight of his younger sister dressed so effeminately, which elicited a sneer on her part as she walked across the room to stand across the table from their uncle, who quickly stopped talking. "I talked him into staying, no problem. It's just going to take a while to get anything out of him - especially when I don't know what I'm trying to find out."

"Anything you can," Henry said simply, rising to his feet when he saw that his niece did not take a seat. She was _always_ this way, confrontational, nothing like a woman should have been. If her father and grandfather had permitted it, he wasn't quite as accepting. "I'm working with these SAMCRO _brutes_ out of necessity, but that doesn't mean I trust them."

"Well, this is _exhausting_ ," Denise said with a grimace. "This doe-eyed, damsel act is full of -"

But before she could specify what it was full of, Henry's palm collided with her cheek with a significant smacking sound - not hard enough to leave a mark, but hard enough to make an impression. Charles flinched, as though his initial reaction was to protect his sister but thought better of it.

"I'm sorry, uncle," Denise said, her jaw now slightly clenched.

"This _act_ might be your chance to remember what your place is," Henry said, crossing his arms over his chest without even the tiniest sign of remorse for having laid hands on his niece. She nodded wordlessly, and sat down next to her brother. Seemingly appeased, Henry nodded and started towards the front door. "Lock up before the two of you leave. I have an important business meeting in Oakland."

Denise didn't look up until she heard the door close behind Uncle Henry, and at this point, Charles turned and placed his hands on his sister's shoulders.

"You know better than to talk that way in front of Uncle," he said, his brow furrowed as he saw the slight reddening of his sister's cheek. It would go away quickly enough. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," she said coldly. "I just want to get this _over_ with and get away from him, _gege_."

"You'll be free from all of this soon, _Mei_. I swear."

Perhaps, Charles knew, he wasn't a good enough person to simply keep his sister away from this altogether. He was no saint. He knew that he needed her much more than she needed him, for reasons she had not yet been deemed worthy of knowing. But he loved her. She was all he had, after all. The most hurtful wound of all of this, however, was that he saw more and more every day that she believed in him less and less.

* * *

_"If I were you, I'd take that gun, put it in my mouth, and pull the trigger..."_

_Chibs' words rang in his head, but in this dream - it had to be a dream - he was sitting in that diner, sitting across from himself, staring into his own eyes. There were no words exchanged, not even a sound made. But this doppelganger's arm moved, pointing a gun across the table with a surreal grin._

_"You want me to do it?"  
_

_"No..."_

_"Why not?"_

_"Because I don't want to die yet," he said in a shaky voice. "I don't wanna die...:_

Juice woke with a start, sitting up from his place on Denise's sofa and nearly falling off, tangled in the blankets. He'd shut all of the blinds so that it was hard to tell that it was still daytime and he'd slept through most of his normal waking hours until he was startled by his own dream.

What the hell kind of pansy ass still had nightmares? He wondered. Sitting up, he buried his head in his hands. It was strange to admit that he sort of wanted Denise to come back already. As unusual as she was, as little as he found himself able to relate to her in any way, her strangeness was a distraction. She kept him from being consumed by his own thoughts, and now with her away, they were settling in again, slow and suffocating like he was trapped in a room in a burning house, watching smoke slow creep in under the doors.

Juice knew he shouldn't have been where he was. He knew that he was a man with sins to atone for - with debts to be paid. But, strangest of all, he felt a strange sense of hope even now that he would find something that could simply erase all of this _shit_ he had done, give him back his family. He had never had much - he simply wanted what little he once had back.

"I'll be back," he muttered to himself, like muttering a promise into his own hands like they were something he could hold onto. He repeated it a few times, but it never felt any more convincing. Frustrated at his inability to convince even himself, he stood, pacing across the living room until his eyes rested on a small cabinet in the dining area.

Would it hurt, he wondered, if he knew a little bit more about the woman who had taken him in? It was for his own security, he convinced himself. He needed to watch his own back because no one else would. He made his way over and crouched in front of the lower-level drawers, pulling them open carefully. No locks, even. He wondered what it was like to be a person like Denise, a person with nothing to hide.

She certainly hadn't been lying when she said that she didn't keep much here. The drawer's only contents were a few DVD's and an album. Pulling out the album, Juice sat on the floor and flipped to the first page, a picture of a newborn in a hospital crib with her name scrawled onto a small card: _Denise Kwan_.

With a glance at the date on the card, juice immediately had a full name and a date of birth on the girl - more than he'd had moments ago. He flipped the page and saw a photo of her as a toddler in which she was accompanied by three others: a young boy who looked barely a few years older than her, and two other men. Doodled in neat cursive at the bottom was the caption, Denise and Charles with Pa and Grandpapa. The next page, a photo of her in a bright colored tutu. A picture of her on a stage dressed in a toga in front of a banner that heralded her school production of Julius Caesar. Her in a group of people dressed in scrubs, posing together in front of what looked like a potluck dinner.

Then - Juice froze when the next page held a collection of small newspaper clippings, obituaries of her father and grandfather. He suddenly felt much less justified, as though the invasion he had committed of her privacy in her home was now even more dire because of how much he knew. She had been a dancer, a theater geek… she had worked in a hospital. She had a brother, and had recently lost her father and grandfather. No mother. He closed the album, shoving it back into the drawer and slamming the cabinet shut. He backed away, practically leaping to his feet and covering his face with his hands.

"Dammit," he said, hi jaw clenched so fervently that the tendons in his neck stiffened almost painfully. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be fucking with your life like this. I shouldn't be _in_ your life - you don't need my shit," he stammered, pacing and talking as though he was actually speaking to someone. "Denise… God, dammit. It's only for now. I just need time and I'll be out of your way. I won't wreck anything… dammit…"

Dammit, he repeated, because he knew he couldn't promise that.


	5. Belief Makes Things Real

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Juice just might believe in mermaids; Denise isn't sure what she believes in. The pair settle into a sense of stasis in the house that surprises them both.

Having spent the night in San Francisco in one of her uncle's guest rooms, Denise didn't make her way back to Stockton until Sunday afternoon. She felt strangely exhausted, not because she had done any work during her time there, but because she simply found dealing with her family's _business_ to be exhausting.

Unlocking and opening her door, her brow furrowed slightly when she realized that her home smelled different. "Juan?" she asked unsurely - it still seemed so strange to call him that, despite the fact that she knew his file back to front; she knew what he preferred being called. "Are you still here?"

And like clockwork, he appeared around the corner from the kitchen, hands covered in oven mitts and carrying a steaming dish.

"It's uh - pasta," he explained, holding it out towards Denise before putting it down on the table. She chuckled slightly as she finished heading inside, shutting the door behind her. She walked over and peered into the dish. Admittedly, it looked good - not microwaved. She hadn't read anything in his file to indicate that he was actually a better cook than her too. She chuckled slightly to herself, shaking her head.

"Thanks," she said, looking down at the food, admittedly impressed that he'd somehow managed to make something that resembled food out of whatever she had laying around. Juice, however, had honestly thought to do it out of guilt for having gone through her things. It hadn't _stopped_ at the photo album. He'd looked through her kitchen, her bathroom cabinets, everything except for her bedroom, which she'd kept locked. He didn't realize that everything he'd seen, he'd been _meant_ to see to create a particular idea of who Denise was.

Denise caught sight of his eyes flitting around the room and surmised just as much - that he was worried about her noticing things out of place where he'd gone through them. He was walking straight into the trail of breadcrumbs Denise had been forced to lay. He was _that_ desperate to believe something, she realized.

From outside the window, there was the sound of the revving of an engine - Juice wheeled around and practically seemed to try and hide from the sound. His sudden movement had almost looked like a tackling motion, so out of reflex, Denise jumped out of the way with a slight gasp. The pair then glanced at each other with an almost electric sense of discomfort until Denise decided to speak up.

"You're - really jumpy," she observed carefully. He looked off with a frown, walking away and sitting back down on the couch with a tiredness and weariness. _Don't do that_ , Denise mentally pleaded as she saw him. She wasn't by nature a very sympathetic person, but when she saw him that way, it was certainly a test. She could crack a little, couldn't she? Wasn't it part of her front anyway?

Before mentally answering her own query, she moved across the space and sat down on the sofa next to him - not directly, but with enough space to fit another person about her size between them. She mirrored his posture, resting her elbows on her knees.

"You don't trust me, do you?" she asked plainly - not with accusation, not with anger, but so matter-of-fact that it seemed out of place in the conversation. Juice looked at her with his forehead wrinkled, and she gave a small laugh - precisely what she'd expected. "I can tell," she shrugged. "You think I'm either dumb or a liar. You think that no person can possibly be enough of an _idiot_ to do this. But you know, I never said I was particularly bright."

"Why are you doing this, then?"

"Because... I know how it feels to not have anybody," she said. Feeling a strange sense of regret in her gut at having said it, having _meant_ it, she looked away.

"You have a br-" Juice started, though he cut himself off before he revealed that he knew more about her family than she'd mentioned. "I mean, you go home to see somebody, don't you? What are you talking about?"

"My brother?" Denise asked, now the one bearing the befuddled expression. "He - he needs _me_. Ever since our dad died, it's like he just refuses to let go of me. But at the end of the day he doesn't even know _anything_ about me."

She paused, realizing she'd just done something against the ground rules she'd set for herself. She'd gotten personal. She'd told a _truth_ without need. She pressed the heels over her hands to her face and shook her head.

"So is that where this… happy-go-lucky, Pollyanna shit comes in?" Juice asked, leaning back against the sofa cushions, looking at the young woman in front of him with somewhat gentler scrutiny. "Everything just sucks balls so you don't think about all of the bullshit?"

"Something like that. Maybe a few less _shits_ in there," she said with a lopsided grin, still leaning forward but turning her head to look back at him. Denise was relieved to see that he seemed to be buying it; even his body language said that she seemed to have broken down a wall and gotten one step closer to finishing this job. "It's just easier this way," she shrugged. "Being sad is tiring. Hating people is tiring. Hating the world is tiring. So… why bother?" she asked. With a glance at Juice, she realized that he actually seemed to be thinking about what she said, so much so that Denise felt bad for not actually meaning it. She _didn't_ live that way. She _was_ angry. She _did_ hate the world. So… why was every word she said somehow so believeable?

"You really are some kind of angel," he chuckled, shaking his head. Denise rolled her eyes a little and reached onto the table for the remote, turning on the television set to find that it automatically flipped to the right setting - and to Animal Planet. Her mouth contorted into a concealed grin as she sat up and turned her head to look at Juice questioningly about his choice of television programming.

"They had that special about finding the body of a mermaid," he shrugged, gesturing towards the TV. "I thought it was pretty compelling."

"You know mermaids are fake, right?"

"You believe a random homeless guy you pick up in Stockton isn't going to rob you blind and murder you in your sleep, but you don't believe in mermaids?" he asked, raising an eyebrow and unknowingly eliciting the first _genuine_ laughter from Denise. Now slightly doubled over with her long dark hair falling over her face, Juice finally came to two realizations: first, that he genuinely _did_ buy some of that special about mermaids, and second, that being around someone who still tried to believe in _good_ things was refreshing. For the first time in longer than he cared to keep track of, being around someone actually felt _good_.

The realization, however, was punctuated by the phone in her back pocket going off. She squirmed a little to get it, and let out a small groan when she read what Juice presumed was a text message.

"I forgot, some of the people I take classes with wanted to hold this Sunday study group here because the apartment they usually hold it at is getting fumigated," she said, wrinkling her nose slightly - this, it turned out, was actually a truth. She had a small group of people at her university that she almost considered friends by some stretch of the imagination, and they did indeed have study groups on Sundays. "But I can tell them to just meet up at a Starbucks or something -"

"Nah. _Nah,_ ," Juice said, shaking his head and not letting on that he had a fair amount of hesitation about other people seeing him, knowing that he was _there_. "Don't blow off plans on my account. I can scram for a while -"

"No! No, it's fine - they're not the most interesting people around, but they won't mind you being around. Besides," Denise shrugged. "You - you don't really want to go out there, do you? You haven't really left all weekend."

Touche.

The group that arrived about an hour later consisted of four girls about Denise's age and a male - the scrawny, hipster sort with non-functional glasses and a plaid shirt; he introduced himself as Harvey. The three girls, if Juice hadn't lost track, were named Lori, Melissa, and Jessy. Juice felt strange around them - mostly because he'd never been one of them, even when he'd been their age about six years ago. Even _Denise_ seemed strangely out of place with them, even if they all seemed just as nice, even if not as _deep_ as Denise had proven herself to be.

"Guys," Denise said awkwardly as they all settled around the coffee table. "This is - this is Juan. He's a friend, he's staying with me for a while."

" _Juan_ ," Melissa repeated, glancing at Denise with a suggestive grin that made it clear what she was assuming. "A friend? Is he your new -"

"I'm not _with_ him," Denise interrupted with a nervous laugh, feeling slightly uncomfortable with the fact that people who knew the real her were so close, in such a precarious position that could very well jeopardize everything. "I mean, you know, like, physically, I'm _with_ him in this apartment. I mean - not like _that_ ," she stammered purposefully. Even knowing that she wasn't the type, the group seemed to believe that she had something to be nervous about.

"You look… unusually cute today, Denise," Harvey pointed out with a seedy grin that rendered Juice unable to resist making a disgusted expression. Where did sleazes like him get off, making passes at girls as innocent as Denise? A strange sense of protectiveness settled in Juice's gut, but he didn't speak up about it.

He glanced over and realized that their study group was struggling with physics, and he leaned over, unable to hold back from grabbing the pen from Denise's hand and explaining the concept of tensile strength that they seemed to be fumbling over. Harvey seemed to roll his eyes, but the girls - Denise included - seemed to be hanging on his words. Juice smirked, admittedly haughty upon receiving the attention, through the later half of his explanation.

"So, it's that simple," he said at the end of his explanation, which he had admittedly drawn out a little to keep the admiring glances on himself - he'd needed that. Badly. Melissa chuckled and glanced over at Denise, elbowing her gently.

"He's cute _and_ smart," she grinned broadly. "I might have to steal this one from you -"

"Oh, God, Melissa! The first time Denise ever so much as shows up with a guy and you're gonna steal him?" Dani said. "Cut the girl some slack."

Now, Denise turned genuinely red yet again and stayed that way until they had left. Cleaning up the papers that had ended up littered on the coffee table, Denise let out a deep breath and looked at Juice with raised eyebrows when he moved over to help her.

"This is your fault. _You_ asked for that, hanging around them in those," she said, gesturing at his attire, consisting of a wife beater and admittedly snug jeans. "I mean, you that you're - you're -"

"I'm what?" he asked with a smirk.

"In ridiculously good shape, you're in _ridiculously good shape_ ," she snapped, walking off with the stack of papers, visibly flustered. Juice seemed admittedly satisfied with himself with this reaction from her, so he sat comfortably on the sofa and propped his feet up on the table when she walked off. He had turned on the television and resumed watching Animal Planet when Denise returned, changed into her home clothes with more books tucked under her arm.

"I still have a couple other classes to study for," she explained, holding up one of her books with one hand. "I… usually do it on the couch."

"What?"

" _Study!_ " she yelped, clearing her throat. "Not, you know, _do it._ I usually study on the couch. Is that okay?"

"You're asking me if it's okay for you to study on your own couch, in your own house?"

"I'm trying to be a good host!" she argued.

"Oh, right," Juice smirked. "That whole good deed thing that you do, right?"

"Laugh if you want," Denise huffed, walking over and standing in front of the sofa with her books clutched in front of her. " _I_ take that kind of thing seriously."

"Okay, okay. Just park it here," Juice replied, patting the sofa next to him. He smiled a little when she sat a little closer than before, pulling her knees up to her chest and resting her book on her knees.

It was honestly a little endearing that she muttered the words she read to herself and switched back and forth between four or five different highlighters, unfazed by his channel surfing and occasional barks of laughter at whatever he was watching. Eventually, however, her mumbling and the sound of highlighters dragging across the page ceased somewhere in the middle of the episode of 'Naked and Afraid' that Juice had landed on. "Hey, Dee. Look at this," he said, nudging her with his arm. "Dee -"

He turned and saw that she had fallen asleep with her face pressed against her book. He gave her another nudge, but she didn't stir. Juice felt, yet again, a strange sense of guilt for the fact that he was hiding so much from her, and here she was, trusting him enough to fall asleep around him. With a grave expression on his face, he picked up her books and placed them down on the coffee table before scooping her up into his arms.

It was unsurprising that she was incredibly light, but what did come unexpectedly was that such a tiny body was so _warm_. Juice carried her into her room, which now was left unlocked and ajar enough that he could nudge it open with his shoulder. Attached to the first instance of prolonged contact he'd had in a while, he was almost reluctant to put her down in her bed - which was covered with a comforter with prints of owls on it. "Cute," he chuckled to himself as he finally lowered her onto the comforter. On contact, she immediately rolled onto her side and gave a small groan.

Juice crossed his arms over himself, practically holding his breath as for a few brief moments, he simply _looked_ at her. "Dammit," he muttered, shaking his head. "Please, don't be so good to me. Just stop," he muttered. He sighed and back away towards the door, glancing around at the photos and things around the room, artifacts of the life he'd interrupted. "I'm not your good deed," he said, backing out of the room completely and shutting the door quietly behind him before heading back to the couch.


	6. An Invitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Denise talks Juice into a night out on the town, but wavers in her dedication to getting her job done.

Denise gave a slight groan, stretching and cover her eyes with her forearm to block out the tiny string of sunlight peering through her blinds. She sat up tiredly, and looked around realizing she didn't remember getting up to _go_ to bed, which meant that unless she had recently taken up sleepwalking, Juice had helped her get there. Barely awake and slightly confused, she swung her legs over the side of her bed and went out to the living room, where Juice was already awake, watching TV yet again. She walked over wordlessly and looked down at the papers on the coffee table in front of him - it looked like the assignment she'd started on before falling asleep the previous night, except there was _more_ of it, handwritten in her own writing. She picked it up and stared incredulously.

"It's a gift," Juice piped in, not turning to face her and keeping his eyes on the TV calmly. "you have really easy handwriting to copy. Really simple. Not, you know, girly or anything."

"Thanks…" Denise said hesitantly, rubbing her eyes with the back of one hand and deciding better than to analyze whether or not it was a compliment to say she didn't have girly handwriting. She put the papers down and wandered over to the kitchen to make herself a mug of instant coffee before trying to make conversation any further. "There's a - a _thing_ tonight," she spoke up suddenly, remembering an invitation Melissa had mentioned on her way out the previous night. "Do you want to - I mean… never mind."

"Thing?" Juice asked, lacing his fingers behind his head. "Like another study group?"

"No, like a… _thing_ ," Denise spoke up sheepishly. "Melissa and Harvey are throwing this end of midterms party at a bar, and I thought maybe you'd want a change of scenery or something. You've been in here for a… a while."

Juice's gut reaction was to refuse - but no one who had any interest him would be showing up at some trendy, collegey bar. He really had no reason to be there himself, save for Denise's invite. And she was right - he did the best he could, trapped in the same four walls, but he was running out of things to do. No one would care to look for him in a rich, college-kid neighborhood, would they? But if they did… then he would be leading them straight to Denise, and leading Denise straight to trouble. Did he want a little freedom that badly?

Yes. He _needed_ a little freedom that badly.

"You know what? Yeah. Let's do it," he said, gesturing widely with his arms. "Let's go to the thing."

Juice couldn't help but think that the smile that crossed Denise's face, even if only for a brief moment, was well worth the risk, though why it was worth it, he wasn't quite able to pinpoint. She went off to class that morning, and he did the usual - trying to make something out of nothing in her pantry and watching Animal Planet and National Geographic specials until afternoon, where he meandered into the bathroom and looked at himself in the mirror, crossing his arms. He'd been good enough about shaving, but he hadn't let his hair get this long since…

Prison. Denise didn't even know she was harboring an ex-con in her townhouse. Juice banished the thought from his head and began rifling through the cabinets for whatever he could find. He came across a somewhat promising tub of hairgel. _Pink_ hairgel. He opened the tub and gave it a sniff, surprised to find that it didn't smell nearly as girly as he'd expected. Shrugging to himself, he began running his fingertips through his hair.

He looked as though he actually belonged here with someone like Denise, he said with a lopsided grin, though he jumped in surprise when, speak of the Devil, the young woman's head peered suddenly in the doorway.

"You used my gel," she said with a Cheshire Cat grin, chuckling openly. Juice turned around and gestured with his arms.

"Look okay?"

"Yeah -" Denise replied, though she covered her mouth with widened eyes when her voice cracked into a slight squeak. All part of the act, she reminded herself. All part of the act. After all, how was any girl supposed to respond seeing him like that? He cleaned up nicely, admittedly. He was wearing a tight, long-sleeved white shirt that she'd seen him buy from Target when they'd gone, and a pair of black jeans, and Denise, despite all of her best efforts, was still only human. She cleared her throat and looked down at the floor, scratching the back of her neck - a true nervous tic of hers.

"I mean, you look fine," she nodded, unable to look up knowing that he was doing his best to cover up the fact that he was snickering at her reaction. She reached into her back pocket and held the car keys out towards him. "I still need to get ready, do you wanna go start the car?" she asked, more than anything wanting to get him out of the house so she didn't need to _look_ at him for fear of losing her voice again. Juice, however, stopped chuckling and looked at her questioningly.

"You mean, me, drive?"

"Well, yeah," Denise shrugged. "You looked a little green the last time _I_ drove, and I don't want you puking in my car," she smirked. He rolled his eyes good-naturedly and took the keys from her hand, walking out to the car.

Denise walked out to the living room and waited until she saw Juice take a seat in the car before she pulled her phone out of her pocket and called Charles.

" _Gege_ ," she said carefully, keeping an eye on the window while keeping out of view. "I'm taking out tonight - yes, with drinks. But I'm not going to get _everything_ you need. I told you, this takes time -"

"It takes time, or you're _taking_ your time?"

"I know what I'm doing, Charles," she hissed, her face contorting in annoyance. "Bye."

Hanging up, she went back to her room and hurried to change, possessing every intention of using the feminine wiles she wasn't even sure she had to inch towards her goal. The goal grew more and more vague with every passing day.

She admittedly _hated_ all of the more feminine clothes that Charles had forced her to fill her closet with to get this job done, but she could at least tolerate a few pieces, including the Aztec-print romper and black blazer she threw on with a pair of heels. She plaited her hair to one side, swiped on as little as makeup as she could to avoid embarrassing herself with it, and hurried out to the car. She hopped into the passenger seat of the car and closed the door, surprised to find it was Juice's turn to be caught off his guard - namely, by the expanse of skin of her legs, which admittedly, he'd _sort of_ seen before, but in a very different context.

He hadn't been expecting her to show that much leg. Denise just seemed so benign, he practically forgot she _had_ legs until now, when they were very, _very_ obvious.

Denise cleared her throat, and he quickly looked away from her - she finally managed to let out a snicker herself. "Listen, just so you know," she said as they finally took off. "You're not, you know - obligated to stick with me the whole night anything. But I'm probably going to cut out by midnight -"

"I'll be waiting at the door, Cinderella," he chuckled, strangely relieved to be driving, as it gave him some sense of control over something. It was a godsend, he decided that Denise recognized how much he needed to get out of the house, away from his thoughts. "And…" he added, before he could think to filter himself, "if you, you know, meet somebody, I know that three's a crowd. I won't cramp your style."

"What style?" Denise laughed, astounded at the idea that he believed it was a possibility she'd leave the bar with someone - did that mean, she wondered, that he thought she was _attractive_ enough? Attractive, period? The idea was admittedly flattering, she thought with a concealed smile, looking away towards the window.

This was a job, she reminded herself. She was happy because her job was getting closer to being done, and that was all.


	7. The Way to Say Goodnight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A promising night out for both Juice and Denise takes a turn for the worst.

"You _came_!" Melissa squealed the instant she saw Denise walk into the bar - the blonde woman, already well on her way to having had too much, practically clotheslined Denise into a hug. "You look super hot!"

"I'm actually a little chilly considering I'm not wearing any pants," Denise said with a lopsided grin as Melissa dragged her away from Juice, who had already become the recipient of very appreciative attention from a couple of flouncy sorority girls at the door. He glanced at Denise one more time before entertaining them with a grin, and Denise grudgingly smiled, shaking her head. It certainly didn't come as a surprise to _her_.

"You brought your little boytoy too," Melissa grinned impishly as she dragged Denise to a stool by the bar, still tugging on her arm. Upon receiving a pointed look from Denise, however, Melissa withdrew her hand and laughed, shaking her head. "Oh, right. You're not 'with' him - damn shame, too," she snickered, looking across the bar at him appreciatively. "You mean you're not even the tiniest bit jealous that those seniors from Delta Gamma are all over him?"

Denise opened her mouth to reply, but what her reply was about to be, Melissa would never know, Harvey interjected, leaning back on the bar between the two girls and beaming widely. "What are we talking about, ladies? And more importantly, why are we talking and not drinking?" he asked, waving the bartender to come over before leaning towards Denise. "I'm gonna buy _you_ a shot," he chuckled, and no sooner had he said it, the bartender had poured it. He slid it to Harvey, who then slid it across the bar to Denise, who picked it up and glanced at the shotglass of tequila.

"Liquor before beer, I guess," she shrugged before downing the shot and grimacing slightly as she clinked the shotglass back down onto the bar. "Cheers," she practically squeaked with a wince. She was beginning to think that she'd made a mistake coming out here, considering she and Juice were on opposite ends of the place. There was no point to this if she wouldn't be able to do anything useful - but here she was, and she was likely going to be stuck pretending she actually _wanted_ to be here.

A little bit more alcohol later, however, it didn't seem completely true that she didn't want to be there, as she was laughing loud enough for Juice to hear her clear across the bar. Despite the fact that he'd usually have passed, he'd had a couple drinks himself, but even so, he had quickly gotten bored of the sorority girls that had trailed along behind him since he arrived. It had been interesting at first - he'd never _done_ the college scene, and the fact that he was welcomed so openly into it felt good. It made him feel like he had a different life, that places like this were where he belonged.

When he overheard Denise laughing with her friends, however, he felt something unpleasant - unpleasant in a way that he couldn't blame on the alcohol. She had a life. She was twenty-four, and she'd had a full life before he came into it. The guilt seemed to overtake the buzz he'd started to feel, and so he ordered another while Melissa raucously dragged Denise out to a group of girls on the dance floor.

The thing about being a little bit drunk was that it was the one of the few ways to get someone to do the things they usually didn't - and for Denise Kwan, that was dancing. She used to dance as a child to make her father and grandfather happy, because it was what girls were supposed to do. After a few years, however, they never seemed to be quite as pleased as they were earlier on - they grew more and more permissive about her taking up more boyish hobbies, and so, dance classes were forgotten. It wasn't that she _couldn't_ do it. It was that usually, she simply _didn't_.

Drunk dancing, however, seemed to be the exception. With a newly topped off buzz, Juice noticed with annoyance that a few meathead-looking pretty boys seemed to be dancing a little too closely and in his current buzz, his conclusion seemed reasonable: they were complete sleazes, and she was his ride home, so it was better _he_ dance with her than them.

Even if he wasn't much of a dancer, he had little trouble getting the other guys out of the way so that he was dancing behind Denise. For the first time, with his inhibitions lowered as they were, he allowed himself to look at her appreciatively. Melissa, looking particularly amused at his arrival, mouthed to Denise, ' _behind you!_ '

Reflexively, Denise turned around, though not as steady on her feet as she normally was - swaying as she turned, Juice practically shivered unexpectedly when she brushed against the front of his jeans. She didn't seem to notice, though, as she instead grinned broadly and slung her arm forward onto his shoulder, pulling him into an enthusiastic one-armed hug - even in heels she was so petite that in order to do so, her body felt like it practically had to climb his.

"I thought I lost you for a second in here!" she laughed brightly, still hugging him with her lips close to his ear, and Juice could only manage a husky laugh in response as he wrapped an arm around her waist in return. And then, he was dancing with her. She was always warm, but now, aided by a few drinks, her warmth against him was almost maddening. She moved her body with his, _against_ his without any knowledge, it seemed, of how long it had been since he'd had contact with anyone like this.

Now holding her body as close to his as he could as the danced, he started noticing other details about her - the wisps of hair that fell into her face, her bright, almost doll-like eyes… her pink, slightly parted lips. He had already been unwittingly leaning forward towards them when suddenly, Denise gave a loud yelp, and he looked up to see Harvey letting out a string of curses, having ' _accidentally_ ' spilled a drink on her from behind.

"Oh my God, Denise, I'm sorry!" he said, abruptly pulling her away from Juice, away from the dance floor and towards the bar. Juice looked on with slight annoyance, knowing it had been completely intentional, but also knew that the stunt had probably spared him from doing something incredibly stupid.

Juice felt like it would have been better that he'd done that something stupid, though, when he saw Harvey at the bar, wiping off Denise's back with a napkin and copping a feel that was distastefully obvious. He waded purposefully through the crowd as well.

"I'm sorry, Denise, here," Harvey said, still pretending to be helping his dry off, though this time, his hand was moving significantly lower until Juice reached over and pulled a clearly stumbling Denise out of his reach.

"I think you've helped her out enough for one night, buddy," he said through narrowed eyes. "C'mon, Dee - I think you've had enough."

Juice didn't really understand why he was pulling her so protectively out of the bar, practically shielding her from anyone so much as even looking at her. She complied willingly enough and seemed to get some of her wits about her once they got outside into the cold night air.

" _Shit_ ," she muttered, pressing the heel of her hand onto her forehead. "I can't believe that - that I -"

But she was interrupted yet again when there was a loud noise somewhere down the street - the revving of an engine, or a motorcycle or something, and Juice immediately grabbed her and pulled her into a nearby alley, far enough back so that they were concealed in the shadows from anyone who happened to be passing by. Juice's expression was grim, his eyes narrowed as he backed Denise abruptly against the wall - he was _hiding_ her from whatever he thought was out there.

"It can't be them - they can't find me here with _you_ ," he said in a guttural tone, his eyes focused on the street at the end of the alleyway. "They can't get near you. _Fuck_ -"

"Juan? What's going on?" Denise asked, her forehead wrinkled. She reached up and gave his shoulder a squeeze, which appeared almost to shock him. He turned back to face her with a slight huff, shaking his head.

"Nothing. Nothing's going on," he snapped. He paused and looked down at the fearful expression on the young woman's face, and he felt himself melt. "I've got you, Dee. I've got you…"

And then, without thinking, he followed through with what he almost did in the bar. He pressed his lips to hers hungrily, and immediately gave a low groan at the warmth of her mouth on his. Inhibitions aside, he pressed his body against hers, pressing her up against the wall behind her when he realized she was returning the kiss. He smiled against her lips when he realized they tasted like liquor and _cherries_ \- the idea that she'd gotten so drunk off of girly cocktails seemed to fit her so perfectly. She was just… _sweet_ , and good, and innocent.

At this thought, he pulled away quickly - he practically jumped so that no part of him was touching her, leaving Denise looking completely stunned.

"Shit," he muttered, running his hands over his head and beginning to pace. "I - I'm sorry. I'm sorry… I shouldn't have done that. I'm..."

And he ran off, leaving Denise completely confused in the alleyway. It took a few moments before she realized one crucial detail: he still had her car keys.


	8. Connecting the Dots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After receiving new intelligence about Henry Lin's operations, Jax's priorities shift. Juice's growing connection to Denise starts to become complicated.

"So, what's the word?"

Chibs would never have said anything against the reigning president, but he found it unusually cruel of Jax to force _him_ to fulfill the duties that Juice, for obvious reasons, could not. Perhaps it had been because Jax had seen him speaking with Jarry - he seemed to be particularly bitter towards anyone with even a semblance of a romantic connection with anyone, and so, Chibs had ceased unnecessary contact. Granted, there were a few moments of weakness, but nothing he wasn't skilled enough to hide.

He'd been sent to do recon on the Lin Triad, and had just ridden back into Charming, meeting Jax in his home where he said enjoying a scotch for breakfast while Gemma looked after the boys. He hated to admit it, but at times, Jax was even beginning to look like Clay at first glance.

"Lin's been quiet," he admitted, already expecting the way Jax's face snapped upward with a gaze of utmost disappointment. "There's been nothing substantive -"

"Then give me what you've _got_ , Chibs," he said irately, putting his glass down with a loud clink - luckily, the boys didn't even seem to notice, as Gemma seemed to have perfected the art of insulating them, of distracting them since their mother's death. The older woman, however, was far more aware of what was happening and continued to watch the exchange through her peripheral vision.

" _Meimei,_ " Chibs said with a shrug, not understanding why something that potentially had nothing to do with their business was so important to him. The only explanation that made sense was if this was personal, not business - but that would mean that Jax Teller was not being the leader he'd hoped, and no one seemed prepared to accept that. "We've intercepted some communications and the only lead we have is that Lin is worried about losing control of something called _Meimei_ \- that losing it could compromise their entire operation. It sounds like it might be their number one priority."

"Then we get our hands on it," Jax said with a wide gesture of his arms. "We find out what _Meimei_ is and we take it - we ruin them -"

"Jax."

He looked up to see that his mother had spoken up gently while in the middle of pouring a glass of milk for Abel. She placed the cup on the table in front of the boy and walked over so that she stood with Chibs and Jax with her arms crossed. Her son, however, seemed unreceptive.

"Club business, not yours. You're no one's old lady, and there's no reason for you -"

" _You're_ my business. Your boys are my business," Gemma hissed. "You're my _only_ business. Remember that."

* * *

Denise woke up in her own bed, but upon feeling sunlight so much as glare onto her face, she immediately first pulled her pillow over her head. The previous night had been terrible, and her poor, throbbing head was proof of it. After walking to the spot where they'd left the car and finding it gone, she'd waited outside, and had to get a ride home from Melissa as she got out of the bar. Upon pulling up in front of her house, she saw that Juice had driven right home - while Melissa somehow found this sweet and endearing, Denise was less than impressed. When she opened the door, Juice was out cold on the couch, half-dressed and half hanging off of it. Too exhausted to be angry, Denise stormed into her room and fell asleep in the same clothes as well.

This morning, however, was a different story. Still smelling slightly of cigarette smoke and liquor, she dragged herself out of bed and into the living room where Juice immediately appeared like a damn whack-a-mole, holding a mug of coffee in her direction.

"Hey, I made -"

He was met immediately with a hearty smack across the face, sending the full mug of coffee clattering onto the carpet. Juice's face snapped to one side and he didn't look back up to look at her, knowing full well that she was absolutely seething at what he'd done the previous night.

"You _ass_ ," she snapped, hitting him again on the shoulder since he was smart enough to no longer expose his face to her - Juice frowned at the fact that she hit much harder than she looked like she would. "You kissed me. You left me drunk in an alley. You stole my _car_ -"

"I was drunk, I brought it right back home!"

"Like that makes it any better?"

"No," Juice said, shaking his head. The movement revealed the fact that she'd left a red mark across his face, and despite knowing he'd likely been through worse, she felt _bad_. "It doesn't make it better. It was a dick move, and that's why I'm leaving - I just wanted to stay long enough to apologize -"

"No!" Denise interrupted - she couldn't just let him leave when her job wasn't done. Judging by the surprised expression on his face, however, she realized that she'd done something that would require an explanation. She grimaced and shook her head, turning away slightly. It could work in her favor. "No, I - you don't have to go," she said, feeling slightly embarrassed by the outburst. "I just was… really shaken by it, is all."

"You're not kicking me out?" Juice asked. Denise's brow furrowed and she cocked her head to one side, and Juice let out a low whistle. "I'm sorry," he said, digging the heels of his hands onto the edge of his eye sockets. He'd _meant_ well. In his mind, he'd been protecting her - but his mind had also been incredibly drunk at the time so as always, the best intentions had the worst results as far as Juice was concerned. He groaned, remembering just how he'd behaved the previous night, and uncovered his eyes, finally managing to look at Denise again. "You are… one of the _best_ people that I've ever met. And I've got a lot of shit that I'm hiding from," he explained. "I thought… kissing you was a really, really shitty thing to do, because it's dangerous. So I thought leaving you was…"

"Protecting me?" Denise supplied, now feeling almost physically pained by the statement, the knowledge that the kiss had possibly come from _somewhere_ other than a simple drunken whim on his part. On her own part, Denise felt a sinking feeling that she was angry at him for bigger reasons as well - that she'd actually been _hurt_ by what he'd done. Juice gave a forced laugh and shrugged, throwing his hands up. Denise shifted her weight, putting her hands on her hips and shaking her head. "From what?"

"If I told you that, I'd be dragging you through even more shit," Juice refused. "I'm already doing that to you enough just by being here."

"You wouldn't be here if you weren't supposed to be," she answered suddenly. She wasn't sure this time if it was part of the act, or if it was something she was truly coming to believe.

"You really think that?"

"Yeah," Denise said, a weak smile crossing her face. "Yeah, I do."


	9. Moving Forward, Taking Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Denise hatches a plan to get more information on Juice, but gets more than she bargains for.

"Lock up if you decide to go anywhere, " Denise said, slinging a small backpack over her shoulder - nearly a week had passed since the incident at the bar on Monday, and now that it was Friday, she was going back down to the Bay Area. Juice, on the other hand, was sitting on the sofa wearing a pair of boxers and an undershirt. Seemingly having gotten past the awkward fact that they'd made out in alleyway when they'd both had a little too much to drink, Denise was surprisingly unfazed by this, but gave him shit for it anyway once it became habit for him.

"Leaving would mean putting pants on," he shrugged, grimacing slightly. Denise rolled her eyes and chuckled as she walked out the door. She made it out to the car and let out a small sigh, pulling out her phone to call her brother and let him know that she was in the car. Denise couldn't admit it to herself or to anyone else, but she was strangely glad that she didn't have much of anything as far as information to pass on about Juice. She was becoming less and less willing to follow through with this.

Juice, however, watched out the window for her to drive off and started to get dressed - he had things to check on that he couldn't risk her getting caught following him. Little did he know, however, that she had pulled off into a side street and switched cars at a location that Charles had set up, leaving the key with a local business owner for her to pick up. Leaving her trademark blue Ford Focus at this location, she returned to the main street in a black Lexus in time to see that Juice had left the apartment and started off somewhere on foot.

* * *

Chibs didn't feel completely secure any time Unser told him they needed to be somewhere alone - but again, here he was, sitting in the passenger seat of Unser's old car as they drove up high five.

"I hope this has something to do with _Meimei_ ," Chibs said sourly, his gaze planted on the road ahead of them. "I'm supposed to be putting _all_ of my goddamn time into finding it, whatever it is."

"I have no idea about where you're gonna find whatever this _Meimei_ ," Unser replied. Jax's current theory, outlandish as it seemed, was that Meimei had to do with a drug deal that they needed to intercept - Chibs had tried to reason otherwise, but he was met with Jax's stubborn insistence that Meimei, which he found meant 'little sister' in Chinese, was somehow a type of code, a reference to 'little sister' in Billy Idol's song, White Wedding. Jax wouldn't listen to any suggestion that he was growing more and more ridiculous, less and less level-headed in his pursuit. "It's a good cover, though," Unser continued. Chibs frowned and gestured with his hand for Unser to continue.

"Listen," he said. "I know that you're putting on this front for the club's sake, but they're not here. They won't know."

Chibs understood now _very_ quickly what this meant, coming from Unser. This had something to do with Juice.

"What's going on with the boy now?" he asked stiffly. "Is he in some kind of trouble?"

"When isn't he?" Unser asked with a heaving breath. "I got a call in from a connection at the Stockton impound lot. They have his bike, no sign of him anywhere. I thought we should go check it out."

"You know I can't do this."

"It's better than taking shots in the dark about what the hell _Meimei_ is," Unser pointed out. Chibs grudgingly admitted that the old man had a point.

* * *

Juice waited until dark to sneak into the impound lot under the chain-link fence - he didn't want to pay his bike a visit while Denise was around, because she'd ask questions. She'd want to know why a bike mattered so much to him, and answering that question would lead to more questions that she didn't need to know the answer to.

But she _wanted_ those answers more than anything, evidenced by the fact that she very quietly followed him in, sliding through the gap he'd left under the fence with hardly a sound and nimbly crouching through the next row over.

Juice stopped next to his bike, quickly able to find it as though drawn to it like a magnet. He crouched next to it and patted his hand on the seat with a breath.

"I can't come back for you yet," he explained in a near whisper that Denise had to struggle to hear, even though their surroundings were practically dead silent. "There's too much at stake. But eventually you'll be outta here."

"She'll be out of here _tonight_."

Denise clenched her jaw to keep from gasping at the arrival of an unfamiliar voice. Juice leapt to his feet and pulled his Beretta out of the waistband of his pants; Denise heard him cock it, and she immediately wondered if she'd gotten herself into a situation she couldn't get out of with her life.

"Don't make me shoot you, Chibs," Juice said, his voice quavering audibly - the request was probably more for himself than anything else, because as badly as he was shaking, he actually might have missed. Denise listened with bated breath from behind another impounded car as a set of footsteps drew nearer with a series of dull thuds.

"Put the fucking gun down, boy, I'm not here to hurt you."

There was a dense thick silence that rolled in like a fog before another sound - Juice had actually dropped his gun to the ground. There was no further sound that indicated her or this _Chibs_ had taken as much as a step closer to one another, and Denise slowly pivoted so that she could just barely glimpse them from the reflection of a reflection in a rearview mirror.

"Unser got his hands on these," Chibs said, holding up a pair of keys for Juice to see. "Only he and I know that you're here. You don't look like you've been on the streets or holed up in a motel. You look well."

"Yeah. I'm doing pretty well for myself," Juice said stiffly.

"I'm taking the bike back to Charming," Chibs said - he paused, as though his statement had surprised even himself. "To Jax. We'll convince everyone you're dead. You can go on with whatever you've got going for you here -"

"You're -"

"I'm going to cover for you, boy, don't waste it," Chibs said through gritted teeth. "Whatever you've got -"

"There's a girl, Chibs," Juice interrupted abruptly, cutting the man off as though the confession had disoriented him and he wanted to say anything he could to put it on pause. Denise, on the other hand, pressed a hand over her mouth and looked away from the mirror she used as a periscope of sorts. She didn't want to start meaning something to him, not now that she was starting to get the information she needed - but it seemed like it was too late.

"Well," Chibs said with a slightly forced laugh after a short pause. "I hope she's a good one."

"She's good. Too good," Juice said before adding, with a certain weakness to his voice, "Like, Tara-good."

 _Tara_. Denise's brow furrowed as she struggled to place whether or not she had even come across the name in her background reading. What did she have to do with Juice, and why did he sound so damaged when he mentioned her name?

"Then… keep her the hell away from Charming," Chibs advised. Juice gave a weak laugh, and the message behind it was clear. he had never had any intention of bringing Denise anywhere near Charming. Another silence, before Chibs gave a heaving sigh and spoke up again in a barely audible voice. "I love you, Juicy."

"I know," Juice replied, chuckling again. And then, slowly, Chibs approached and clapped a hand on Juice's shoulder. Juice did him one better and enveloped the older man in a tight hug, extremely relieved at having achieved some level of peace.

Pulling away from the hug, Chibs cleared his throat and spoke up, this time sounding much more grave. "They'll want your kutte."

" _What?_ "

"It's the only way that Jax will believe that you're dead - as much as he hates you, the only way he knows you'd let go of it is if it's pulled off of your cold, dead body."

Denise's eyes widened slightly. The kutte was still in the townhouse - they were going back there, and if she wanted to follow, if she wanted to keep finding any of the information she needed to get this over with. She scrambled silently back across the lot, out under the chainlink fence, and back home.

"It's back home - I mean, back at… her place," Juice explained. Chibs raised his eyebrows slightly at the fact that whoever this girl was, Juice was actually staying with her, calling her place home. "How about you just follow? I'll hand it over back there."

Chibs couldn't help but throw him a bone, handing him the keys to his bike so he could have one last ride, while Chibs rode along behind him with Unser in the car. Unser kept quiet, but Chibs knew that inside, the old man was smug as hell. They pulled up in front of the small slate blue townhouse. Chibs was again surprised when Juice handed him back the keys to the bike, and in turn, pulled a key out of his pocket to unlock the front door.

He was really _living_ with this girl. They both walked into the empty house, and Chibs felt a strange sense of relief that the boy had a decent setup here, even if it was obvious he was just staying on the couch.

"She's really something," Juice said with a throaty chuckle - he didn't know that behind the closed door to Denise's bedroom, _she_ was waiting and listening. "I.. I think if I don't ever go back to Charming…"

His voice trailed off, and Denise buried her head in her hands at the fact that there was a possibility this had gone too far - she had taken her act too far. It was only supposed to be enough to get the information she needed, but instead, she was beginning to _mean_ something to him. He was beginning to see a vague idea of a future with her, when there was no future to be had. Was there?

"It's good you got away when you did - it's about to go down. Jax is taking us all straight to hell," Chibs admitted, the defeat clear in his voice. "He doesn't give a damn about the club. The Sons are just his tools. He'll go to any lengths for it now."

"For?"

"For revenge," Chibs explain. "Against Lin."

And suddenly, Denise couldn't hold in her reaction - she let out a gasp that, judging by the silence that fell on the living room, she'd been heard. There were a few moments of silence, where she felt herself shaking in fear that she'd now been found out, then the door she was leaning against was forcefully yanked open, and she fell out of the room, scrambling to her feet and facing both Juice and Chibs with a deer-in-the-headlights expression.

"Is this her?"

"I'm Denise. Denise Kwan," she said, drawing herself up as best as she could. Chibs looked to Juice, who gave a slight nod, but looked at her with an expression that strangely resembled _hurt_. He said nothing.

"You can call me Chibs if you ever see my ugly mug again," the older man said, holding his gloved hand out to her. Hesitantly, she reached out to shake up, withdrawing as quickly as possible. "But I pray you don't." Denise glanced between the two men and saw that Juice's kutte was slung over Chibs' other forearm, and he was pointedly avoiding looking at it. Chibs glanced, in turn, between Juice and his Good Samaritan, and chuckled, shaking his head and looking down at the ground. "You two look out for one another. Good luck, alright?"

And he left abruptly, closing the door behind him and leaving Juice and Denise alone. There was a long silence, where neither of them looked at one another, each with their own bone to pick but neither with the willingness to speak first until finally Denise crossed her arms and shifted her weight resolutely.

"Why did you just bring someone _into my house_ -"

"Why did you lie about going home to Burlingame tonight?" Juice snapped, his face suddenly contorting in hurt and anger - he consciously took a few steps forward, prompting Denise to take a couple of steps back. "You don't trust me? You _too_?" he said - Denise felt herself shaking again, now at the realization that for whatever reason, her not _trusting_ him had made him snap. "Well, that's fucking _amazing_!" he roared, slapping the bare palm of his hand on the wall behind her with a loud thud, causing her to jump in surprise and give a small cry. Immediately realizing what he'd done, Juice withdrew his hand, running both hands hard over the sides of his head and turning away briefly, looking upward.

"I'm sorry - Dee, I'm sorry," he said, unable to look at her after what he'd just done. He had no right, he reminded himself. She had every right to be pissed at him, and he had none. But he was _angry_ nonetheless. Hurt. "I'm sorry, I just -"

"I don't _trust_ you?" Denise interrupted, her voice now shaky and filled with fury - it was a tone so unfamiliar from the short weeks he had known her that he froze and turned around quickly to see that her face, too, was red and pinched with anger. "That - that is _bullshit_. I let you in my house without knowing a damn thing about you, I didn't ask you questions, even when you put a gun in my face. Don't ride me about not _trusting_ you," she hissed angrily. There was a short while of heated, prolonged eye contact and silence before she gave a huff and strode past him.

"What are you doing?" he asked, his jaw tight. Suddenly, she didn't seem like the sweet girl that he'd gotten to know, the waif who had taken him in off of the street. She was hard. She was angry. She turned to him with a challenging expression, raising her eyebrows and crossing her arms over her chest.

"Just so you're happy - just so you don't accuse me of lying," she said pointedly, "I _will_ leave."

She turned and walked towards the door, closing her hand around the doorknob and starting to pull the door open. Before she could open a gap large enough to exit through, however, Juice had practically flown across the room and again slammed his hand on the door, shutting it so hard that it nearly bounced against the doorjamb. He grabbed her by the crook of her arm and turned her to face him.

"You're not going _anywhere_ ," he said, his eyes glaring and focused, but his voice filled with something else. Before Denise could even begin to wonder what that something else was, however, he answered the question for her as he brought his mouth down upon hers, kissing her forcefully and pressing her with his muscular body against the door.

He let out a guttural growl when he realized this time, completely sober, she was still reciprocating - her teeth caught gently on his lower lip, and he pulled back momentarily for breath, resting his forehead against hers and roving his hands over her waist, her hips, before clasping onto her thighs and hoisting her upwards. She obliged, wrapping her legs around him as he wolfishly leaned in again, aiming his kisses now on the pale skin of her neck.

"Juan…" she said with a small whimper, the nails of one hand grazing over the nape of his neck. He laughed throatily without pulling back, the sensation of which caused her to give a sensual gasp. He smirked with satisfaction as he pulled back momentarily.

"Call me Juice," he said before he could stop himself - and as he pressed his hips firmly against hers, she willingly obliged.


	10. Underhanded

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chibs brings word to the clubhouse that Juice is dead. Denise weighs her brother's increased demands against her own growing inhibitions.

Jax Teller remained expressionless, his hands folded in front of his mouth as Juice's kutte was thrown onto the table in front of him. Chibs had just ridden in on the runaway's bike, and he threw the keys onto the table as well.

"I was hoping to bring him to ye alive," Chibs said sternly, crossing his arms over his chest. The other Sons at the table let out a low hiss at the suggestion - that Juice was dead. Jax curled the leather slightly into his fist and exhaled through his nostrils, shaking his head amid the reactions at the table.

"I'm sorry, brother. I know it's been hard on you," he said, though his tone was flat and expressionless as it had been for practically a month now. "Who took him out?"

"The Asians," Chibs lied easily. "They found out he was on the lam and followed him, tried to bring him into the fold. He refused."

If he couldn't bring the boy back, Chibs reasoned internally, he could at least clear his name in memoriam. Jax nodded silently, and Chibs couldn't help but feel a slight chill, knowing that he'd just _lied_ to Jax, who already had a long list of people with whom he had a score to settle. But the President seemed satisfied with the explanation, drumming his hands on the table in front of him.

"Rat or not, he was still one of ours, and when someone takes out one of ours, it's our business," he said - but whether it was sincere or not was unclear. There was a brief flash of something that looked like regret, but it was quickly wiped away, much like any other impression of humanity in him recently.

"You know what this means, don't you?" Tig asked, shaking his head and tapping on the table with a palm of his hand. "It means they're onto us. They're startin' somethin' - we can't bother with all this spying and -"

"No. We have a _plan_ ," Jax interrupted, not looking at anyone but instead at his hands, his expression hard and determined in such a way that stated it was no use to try to argue. "We find and intercept _Meimei_ , and we ruin them -"

"Jax."

"It's _decided_ ," he said sternly, rising to his feet and standing toe-to-toe with Chibs, who had just attempted to voice dissent. "Lin doesn't deserve to go fast. He doesn't get to go out easy."

And he simply _left_ , heading back home and leaving his brothers completely lost for words at what his leadership was turning into, as well as struck dumb by how they were going to even speak about the fact that Juice was dead.

Jax arrived home, and immediately upon walking through the door, Gemma could tell by the look on his face that something was wrong, moreso than it had been before he left. She intercepted him at the front door before he could go into the boys' bedroom in his state, eyeing him questioningly.

"Juice is dead," Jax stated simply, scratching the back of his head - Gemma was unable to conceal a gasp, bringing a hand up to her chest. "The Chinese got their hands on him. Chibs just brought back his kutte and his bike."

"Oh God, no…" Gemma said, shaking her head, and Jax suddenly felt the weight of the news finally hit him. There was a brief moment of questioning, if Juice's death was truly what he wanted. "God, no. He loved you… he loved all of us…"

She knew that Jax had bad blood with the boy, she knew that he'd done a great many wrongs. He'd fucked up more than his fair share of times, there was no denying that. But he'd never done a single damn thing with bad intentions for any of them. She knew the boy had his faults - that he sometimes was more messed up than he let on - but she also knew that he had a heart, and because of it, he'd done the unthinkable for her. Juice had gotten more blood on his hands to preserve her life, and she'd never been able to repay him for it.

Gemma hurried off and retreated to her own room before breaking down behind her closed door, covering her face with her hands. "I'm so, so sorry, sweetie," she muttered into her palms, shaking her head. "This shouldn't have happened to you. I'm so sorry."

* * *

The sound of her phone going off was enough to bring Denise at least halfway to awake. Her eyes remained closed, but she slowly began to recall snippets of the previous night in detail when she realized, while lying on her side, there was an arm draped over her waist and another beneath her head.

When she realized that she would practically need to call in a lumberjack to deal with a certain case of morning wood, she squirmed slightly as she finally acknowledged that last night had really happened - she was naked under the sheet. So was he.

Juice.

They'd made their way at some point during the evening from the living room to her bedroom, and she opened her eyes when she realized that they had most definitely gone all the way, back to start, and all the way again. Hearing the sound of slight snoring behind her, she carefully reached over to look at her phone without disturbing him - Melissa had sent her a text message to ask her about working on a group presentation.

Denise knew she _should_ go, so with a brief pause, she attempted to squirm out from Juice's arn and sit up, only to have his hold around her waist tighten, pulling her back onto the bed and pressing her close to him again. In spite of herself, she laughed - not forced or with any sort of intention, but because there was something about being this way that made her feel genuinely _okay_. He propped himself slightly with the arm that had been underneath her head and grinned sleepily as he nuzzled her neck gently. There was just something _right_ about this, he decided - even if a part of him was still processing last night, he believed what Denise had once said: that people were where they were because they were supposed to be. Maybe seeing Chibs and giving up his bike and his kutte had happened because he was supposed to be here instead.

"Melissa and I have a project to work on," she laughed breathlessly, only half-heartedly trying to get out from his hold. "I have to go -"

"Tell her it's a bad time," he laughed huskily, grazing his teeth over the tender skin behind her ear, making her breath hitch in her throat. Nestling into him slightly, Denise was admittedly tempted to take his suggestion, but she reluctantly pulled away and got to her feet, pulling the blanket off the bed to cover herself as well and leaving Juice completely exposed. He chuckled, lacing his fingers behind his head and laying back, shaking his head.

"I have to _go_ , Juice," she laughed, walking over to her closet and quickly pulling out the first semi-matching clothes that she could find. He felt strangely happy, hearing her call him _Juice_ , instead of Juan.

"Suit yourself," he smirked. After putting on some underwear and a snug grey t-shirt, Denise turned around, and realized that he was still _looking_ at her, and she at him. There was a brief silence, as though both were trying to find a way to address the previous night but failing. It had all just happened so quickly, it was probably better to drop it. Denise turned back around and pulled on a tight pair of black jeans and tied her hair back messily, shooting him only a wordless smile before hurrying out.

Juice stayed in Denise's bed for a short while before getting out and throwing his clothes back on - at face value, because this was the first time he'd been in a comfortable bed for a pretty long time, but also because it almost felt like he got out of bed, it opened the door to one or the other of them forgetting about the previous night, and whatever it was, wherever it had come from, it wasn't something he _wanted_ to forget about. Whatever this was with her, it was the only thing that made things okay again, and the one thing he needed was for something - _anything_ \- to still be okay. He had half the mind to just stay naked in her bed as a reminder, just to make sure _she_ didn't forget it either.

But that, he reasoned, would probably just freak her out completely, and freaking her out would rule out the possibility of last night ever being discussed, let alone repeated. So, he got up and got dressed.

Denise, meanwhile, had made her way to Melissa's apartment, her eyes covered with a pair of sunglasses to hide the fact that her eyes were still heavily lidded from having done very little sleeping the night before. She was slightly winded, having needed to retrieve her car from where she'd left it the previous night. Melissa saw her at the door, and, after glancing at her for a while, pulled her inside and closed the door quickly behind her.

"You totally _banged_ him last night."

"What?" Denise asked, pulling off her sunglasses and turning to face her friend, whose face had been lit up with an impish grin and whose voice was not lowered in the least because she lived alone anyway. "I - you know what, no comment. _No comment_ ," she said, shaking her head.

"You don't need to comment, your neck looks like it got caught in a bear trap!" Melissa laughed, pushing Denise towards the nearest mirror where she caught sight of herself for the first time that morning. Juice, as it turned out, had very fervently gone to town on her neck. Denise gasped and groaned, turning away from the mirror while Melissa still continued laughing. "This would've probably been a good day to wear a scarf."

"How about we just work on that project?" Denise said dismissively, making her way towards the sofa in Melissa's living room and knowing she wouldn't be able to live this one down. Melissa, however, couldn't have been more pleased to see the girl she considered a good friend actually enjoying herself for once. Unfortunately, this meant that for the entire time they were meant to work on their presentation, she insisted instead upon constantly reminding Denise of the state she was in.

As such, the work took much longer than it needed to - but thankfully still got done and Denise left in a hurry, only realizing once she had gotten back to her car that she'd left her phone there. She groaned when she saw that she'd missed several calls from her brother and, before starting the car to leave, dialed his number. When he answered, however, he didn't greet with a hello or any greeting, but rather with impatience.

" _Well_?" he snapped, and Denise immediately remembered that the entire point of sneaking around to eavesdrop the previous night. had been to try and see what Juice did while she was away. It wasn't that she'd failed, but the information she _had_ learned, she wasn't willing to share.

"He's - he's starting to crack, _ge_ ," Denise replied vaguely, doing what she could in order to conceal the unease. She could have talked about last night, about Chibs, about how SAMCRO wanted Juice _dead_ , but none of it felt right to say. She couldn't get herself to say any of it. "I just - I need more time."

"You don't _have_ more time, _mei_ ," he snapped, raising his voice at her. Denise's jaw clenched, not receptive to being rushed when she'd agreed to help _him_. "Uncle wants the information _now_. You need to step it up. Don't fail me."

And then, he hung up. Denise tossed her phone into the passenger seat and slapped her palms against her steering wheel in frustration, taking a few breaths to calm herself before starting her car. What more could she do? More importantly, what was she still willing to do?


End file.
